


Send a Hurricane to Me

by triggerswaggiehavoc



Category: SEVENTEEN (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe, Budding Love, Emotional Constipation, Fishing, Fluff, Fluff and Humor, Humor, M/M, Misunderstandings, Summer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-01
Updated: 2018-07-01
Packaged: 2019-05-31 19:58:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,402
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15126788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/triggerswaggiehavoc/pseuds/triggerswaggiehavoc
Summary: In the dead of summer's heat, storms are bound to strike sometime. When storms strike, things are bound to change.





	Send a Hurricane to Me

Sweat beads on the back of Jihoon’s neck as he makes his way down toward the shore, gravel hard beneath the soles of his shoes. It’s always hot like this when a storm is coming, always suffocating, the air so thick with moisture he feels like he might already be drowning. The clouds swirl in gray foreboding at the farthest edge of the sky, and as he treads down the path to the docks, he watches them closely. Deep in the recesses, he spies hints of purple, just the slightest traces. Only one day before it hits, maybe two.

It’s been a decent summer so far. Hot as anything, to be certain, but the fish have been easy in coming, and in a small island town that relies on fish for everything, there’s not much else he could ask for. As he takes his first steps out onto the dock, the wood creaks below him, and he looks up at the sky directly above, squints at its brightness. A perfect crystal blue, burning and boundless. The dark sea doesn’t catch a trace of it, barely stirs. A few small waves ripple out when Jihoon steps into his little boat and separates it from the dock, more when he unfurls the sail and sets to rowing. Slowly, he pushes himself away from the harshest glares of the sun.

He stops when he’s on the opposite side of the island, cast in the shade of high cliffs and the quiet houses atop them. The water here is cooler by just a few degrees, and the shadows stick around until long into the evening, when the sun’s begun to set. Fish come easy here, too. Maybe it’s something in the algae in the water by these rocks; Jihoon’s not quite sure. He sets his bucket upright in the floor of his boat, sticks some bait on his hook, and casts his line out to the water surrounding him.

Sometimes, it’s peaceful to fish. In the middle of the sea, nothing in sight but the rock face to one side, it’s easy to stop focusing on things. Jihoon likes fishing most when he doesn’t have to do any thinking. When the line moves, you reel it in. When a fish is on the hook, you put it in the bucket. When the bait is gone, you replace it. The rest of life takes so much thinking. He prefers sometimes just to listen to the waves and take in all those swimming shades of blue.

The sun above creeps gradually toward its noon high as he sits on the water fishing. All around him, the sea is calm and uninterrupted, rolling waves that crash in the invisible distance, hushed in their journey by. Up by the clifftops, he spots a small group of seagulls taking turns making circles in the air, and when he looks back down to his own level, he spots a flaw in the horizon. Neither land nor ocean, growing just larger by the second. It’s another boat, and he knows who’s on it.

Junhui is a handsome man. Jihoon has always thought of himself that he could have been a sound businessman had he been born elsewhere, perhaps even an artist, and he’s thought equally long that if Junhui had been afforded that same change of fate, he could have been something like a model, an actor. As it happens, they were both born here, have lived here all their lives, nothing but fish and sea and skyline, and they’ve both wound up in the same position. When Junhui is close enough to see, he smiles wide and throws his arms about in greeting.

“Come to ruin my day again, have you?” Jihoon calls out to him. Still advancing, Junhui laughs louder than the waves.

Since a few years ago, Jihoon’s been coming to fish in this spot. Sometimes he catches a little less than he’s after, sometimes not, but the shade from the island’s shadow is a lovely consolation, so he can forgive it. Until recently, he’s been the only one fishing around here, most of the town’s other fishermen concentrated on the more consistent sides of the island, and the solitude is another of the many reasons he enjoys it. Ever since Junhui discovered his secret location, he’s been coming to disrupt that very solitude.

“Beautiful day,” Junhui hollers, no more than thirty feet off now, “wouldn’t you say so?”

Jihoon flashes a smile. “Just a few minutes ago, I would have agreed with you.” After a short spell of silence, Junhui laughs again.

He has to know. It’s the common talk that his ancestors, some great something-or-others way way back, founded this village, that they caught the first fish here. He has to know, then, that he’s putting a dent in Jihoon’s daily catch just by being here. To keep showing up when he knows this is insensitive at the very least and vindictive at the very most, but Jihoon can’t figure out why he keeps bothering. It’s so much easier to spread out in the waters by the island’s other face and just test the lines there.

Junhui coasts to a stop only a yard shy of Jihoon, close enough that they could touch if they both reached out toward one another, and begins setting himself up for a day’s work. Jihoon only watches as he spears his bait on the hook and casts it to the side, bucket waiting between his knees on the boat floor. Every day, Jihoon thinks it has to be a joke, this absurd proximity, but Junhui always stays exactly where he stops. Gradually, he begins to hum, an old tune he seems to be fond of. Jihoon doesn’t know it.

Though they’re close enough to allow it, they don’t speak. Jihoon turns his attention back to his line and whether it’s been disturbed yet, reels in fish when they’re there and waits for them when they aren’t. Junhui maintains his soft humming a long while, only taking short breaks from it when he pulls in a fish. When noon has found its way to the sky, Jihoon unpacks a small lunch from his ice box and chances a glance at Junhui’s bucket while he eats it.

“Nice catch you have there, hm?” he muses. Junhui’s humming ceases briefly, and he takes his own look toward Jihoon and flashes a grin.

“Guess so,” he says, softly proud. His eyes widen a little bit when he spots the sandwich in Jihoon’s hands. “Ah, you’re eating? I’ll eat, too.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?” Junhui is already opening his own lunch as he asks, picking up some vegetables tucked into the corner of his lunchbox and lifting them gently to his lips.

“If we both eat now, we’ll both be fishing later,” Jihoon explains. The bread in his mouth is too dry, and he has trouble swallowing it. “You should eat later so I can catch all the fish you’re missing.”

“What an attitude,” Junhui whistles, continuing to eat. “It’s not like we’re competing to see who can catch the most.” Jihoon chews on that for a moment, along with the crust in his cheek.

“Maybe we should compete.”

“What for?”

Jihoon shrugs. “For anything.” Junhui takes a break from eating to look back at Jihoon, dead in the eyes. Far above them, a seagull flies in a slow circle before returning to its shoreside perch.

“Alright, then,” Junhui says, grinning. “We can compete.” He leans back on his seat, warm breeze rippling the fabric of his clothes. “What are the stakes?”

“If I win,” Jihoon says, “I want you to stop fishing here.”

Junhui’s eyes widen, jaw hangs a little loose. Perhaps he wasn’t expecting that. He should have been, Jihoon thinks. “Why’s that?” he asks, voice betraying more than just hints of surprise. “Am I bothering you?”

“Of course you’re bothering me,” Jihoon scoffs. “Don’t act so innocent. Why else would you follow me out here?”

“Maybe I just like your company,” Junhui says, quick and smooth, thoughtless. Jihoon stares at him for a moment before rolling his eyes and looking away, early traces of sunburn budding on his cheeks.

“Yeah, sure,” he says. “If you win, I’ll go fish somewhere else.”

“No.”

“What?”

“If I win,” Junhui says, resealing his lunch and pulling his fishing rod back into his grip, “have dinner with me.” Jihoon chances a glance back at him, holds on for a boiling second, lets go again.

“How childish.”

“Maybe.” Junhui casts his line then, hook flying through the air before sinking into the green waters below, and Jihoon watches it until it’s too far down to see. “But I’ll still be trying to win.”

 “Whoever has the most at the end of the week,” Jihoon declares. “That’s the winner.”

“Understood.”

He continues eating in silence, watching the occasional tightening of Junhui’s line and the few fish he pulls in. All around them, the silence is loud, humid in the air alongside the weight of the rain coming to meet them. When Jihoon finishes eating, he folds his lunch pack up and returns it beneath his seat, then watches another fish come in on Junhui’s hook. The bucket resting between Junhui’s knees is starting to crowd, too small for its catch.

“I’m finished eating,” Jihoon says, spearing a small piece of bait on his hook, “so you can have your lunch now.”

“Who says I’m having lunch?” Junhui asks, glancing sideways and Jihoon and flashing a grin. Jewels of sunlight bouncing of the crests of each small wave land in circles around his eyes. “If I take a break, that’s just a chance for you to get ahead.” His line pulls taut again, and he starts reeling patiently. “I’ll eat when I go home.”

“You’re an awful man,” Jihoon sighs, casting his line far in the opposite direction. No sensation reaches his hands even after the water has obscured his hook from sight. “I’d never have dinner with you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

“Awful.”

They fade back into silence, nothing but the distant sound of breaking waves and the occasional splash of a fish being pulled from the water. Warm sweat dews on the back of Jihoon’s neck as the day drags on, trickling below his ears and along to his chest, and the sky changes gradually from blue to light orange, blazing hot all throughout. They row back before orange has begun to turn gray, and Jihoon follows behind Junhui silently until they reach the docks, added weight of his day’s haul tensing up his shoulders while he rows. Above them, the nasty clouds waiting in darkness at the edge of the sky edge ever closer.

 

Even in fishing villages, it won’t do if everyone fishes. The fish are the root of commerce, the root of life, but society ceases to function without teachers to help children learn or merchants to sell goods to the townspeople. It is impossible to live on this island without the deliveryman, who hauls everything the people ask for off the loaded ship from the mainland and delivers it all to the town’s doorsteps. Soonyoung is often grateful that he’s able to take shelter in the shade on the pathways between houses rather than slave all day on the open sea waiting for fish to bite.

In the middle of every week, a large ship arrives at the port, and Soonyoung unloads everything on the list he’s compiled from the villagers to deliver over the coming week, until the process repeats. This week, due to the storm, the cargo is coming two days earlier, and the business of it dizzies him. He’s not yet finished delivering the past week’s orders, but now he’s got to both finish them and begin on the next week’s, not to mention figure out whether the storage space at the office is enough to house everything. Usually, he takes his time to make his rounds, but this week, he’s off to a sprint from the moment he’s lugged the final bit of cargo to the dock.

Walking all over the town on deliveries has its way of making his feet sore, and he has a feeling as his soles start to ache that he won’t be able to take a day off this week to recover them. The heat is especially unbearable just before a storm hits, air suffocating, and his clothes are clinging to him before long, sweat sticking to every inch of skin. Looking at the sky, he sees the ugly storm clouds are nearing ever so carefully, close enough now to make out without squinting. Sure enough, the storm will hit before they know it. He’s got to get as much as he can delivered before then.

First come the final items from the past week. There aren’t too many, but it’s enough to put a dent in Soonyoung’s time, enough to wear on him. He strides out of the office with both his bag and arms more full than usual and begins his hike to the uppermost houses of the island, sun beating at his back. Why anyone would want to live up so many hills, so far from the rest of town, he’s never understood, but at least the bulk of his deliveries are here today, so he’ll return in the afternoon light as air. Still, the bag slung over his shoulders presses against his back with the intent to kill.

Hours later, he wanders back down the sloping roads with a lighter load, shoulders drooping. The early evening air is thick enough to choke on, but it hasn’t killed him yet, and he still has more deliveries to make before it does. Next is down closer to the docks, one of the small shops that’s ordered more spools of fishing line for the first time in a while, and though Soonyoung knows where it is, he gets a bit turned around looking for it. A bit of sunshine dizziness, he thinks, taking uneasy steps down in the direction he thinks is right.

“Soonyoung,” a low voice calls from behind him, light on the ears despite its depth. Wonwoo is standing there when he turns around, leaned up against the wall beside the bar entrance. The shade looks so tempting. “How are the deliveries going?”

“Oh, you know,” Soonyoung says, wiping hair back from his forehead and drawing his palm back damp enough to make himself grimace, “swell as always.”

“Ship’s in today, right?” Wonwoo asks. “Do you have anything for me?”

“Not right now,” Soonyoung huffs. “I’m still finishing up last week’s arrivals, you know.”

“Wow,” Wonwoo says, whistling. He looks so comfortable over there, still as can be. Soonyoung burns with envy. “Who knew our deliveryman was so lazy?”

“Keep it up and we’ll see whether everything you’ve ordered ends up on the ocean floor.”

Wonwoo laughs then, loud and rolling. It feels a little bit like thunder tingling the insides of Soonyoung’s ears, and he takes a glance at the sky on impulse. Still hanging onto blue, just beginning the descent into sunset hues. Those ugly black clouds now seem so much closer than they had just this morning, heavy and looming. All the breath in Soonyoung’s chest is dense.

“You wouldn’t do that to me,” Wonwoo says, eyes glinting. “I need everything as soon as I can get it. You know storms are the nights I get the best business.”

It’s hard to explain why. Every time there’s a storm, a big one like what’s soon to blow through, all the town’s fishermen like to gather together at the bar. Rather than hunkering down at home, they wander through the bar’s entrance just as the first raindrops start to fall and pack the seats so tight there’s no room left for air inside, order drink after drink and belt out those old fishing tunes they love to sing so much over the sound of the storm raging around them outside.

Soonyoung doesn’t quite get it, but maybe it’s something only the fishermen really understand. It might be that Wonwoo’s bar is carved out into a rocky hillside, safe from the harshest winds, or that he’s always got the windows boarded up nice and tight by the time the crowd rolls in. Either way, storms keep him busy, and he’s ordered more than anyone else off the latest ship to meet the demand. The thought of hauling it all here makes Soonyoung’s knees wobble.

“Guess so,” he allows.

“You sure you’re doing alright?” Wonwoo asks. “It’s hot. Come inside and cool down a minute.”

“Buttering me up won’t get you your deliveries any quicker,” Soonyoung tells him, though he’s already moved them mentally to the highest priority. “Anyway, I don’t have time for a break. Too much to get delivered before the storm hits.”

“Come on, a minute won’t kill you.” Wonwoo steps forward into the sunlight, and it burns in copper streaks along his hair. “Have something cool to drink.”

“I can’t drink on the job.”

“I have water.”

After a second of staring each other down, Soonyoung hangs his head and shuffles in through the doorway. Inside, it’s only a few degrees cooler, but having the sun off him makes a world of difference. Sitting on a chair beneath the slow turn of the ceiling fans, Soonyoung thinks he might pass out here. Only his will keeps him conscious. The sound of Wonwoo setting a glass of ice water on the table in front of him barely registers.

“Thanks,” he mutters, feeling the coolness of it with his palms a minute before tipping the rim of the glass to his lips. The water is so cold it almost burns going down his throat, but he drinks straight through it in one stinging gulp. Wonwoo sits at the adjacent seat and watches him drink, expression blank.

“Thirsty, eh?” he says.

“Ocean floor,” Soonyoung reminds him. Wonwoo’s eyes crinkle in laughter.

“So touchy.” He leans his chin into one palm and smiles, but it’s not a very trustworthy smile. “Anyway, speaking of the storm. Will you come by this time?”

Soonyoung hums. He’s thought before about coming, but something always sticks his feet to the threshold of his front door. The townspeople are all nice enough, but he never feels quite at home in the crowd of them, doesn’t seem to remember the words to any of the songs, and the air inside starts to feel too stale. If it always ends with him sneaking out to wade home in the thick of the storm, he’d rather just stay home to begin with. Even if he does prefer the idea of knocking back one last drink before the winds take him for good.

“I’ll think about it,” he says, standing up. Blood rushes to his head, and for just a moment, the world is all black. Inside their shoes, his feet throb. “Thanks for the water. Be seeing you.”

“Really think about it this time, would you?” Wonwoo says from behind, and Soonyoung turns to peer at him. “Junhui even promised me he’d show this time, so you have to come.” Outside is so maddeningly bright, and he can’t make out Wonwoo’s face in the dark of indoors no matter how hard he squints.

“I will.” He blinks. “Think about it, I mean.”

Soonyoung gets started on shaky feet then, ambling back down the path he was following earlier. The paving scorches the undersides of his feet even though the sun has begun to set, and his skin is warming back up with ease, beads of sweat pearling up all along his arms and forehead. He hasn’t walked more than five yards when he hears Wonwoo’s voice call out behind him again.

“Where exactly are you headed right now?” Wonwoo is standing outside again when Soonyoung turns around, leaned once again against the wall. The shadows now are stretching so much farther.

“Earl’s shop,” Soonyoung tells him, wary. “With hooks.” Wonwoo barks one hard chuckle and shakes his head.

“Other way,” he tells him.

After a second of hard glaring, Soonyoung realizes he’s right and sighs. The heat must really be getting to him. Steps slow and crooked, he stalks back by and starts down the right side of the path without saying another word. Wonwoo wiggles his fingers in an insincere wave as he goes, eyes laughing all the while.

“See you soon,” he calls, voice fading slowly into white noise beneath the crushing weight of the air.

As Soonyoung walks, the sky’s colors bleed gradually away, sun dragging itself toward the horizon inch by painful inch. Even though the evening has arrived already, the summer heat is still thick in all the worst ways, swallowing him up to the neck like boiling quicksand. Closer come those clouds still, dark and menacing, and when he arrives at the storefront, they stand out like glowing coals in the reaches of his periphery. Won’t be much longer now, he thinks, handing over a few shabby boxes of hooks. The clouds creep patiently onward.

 

Wonwoo starts early in the morning. He’s always had an odd gift for smelling something in the air the day a storm is going to hit, and he’s smelling it from the moment he wakes up, so he gets straight to work. The first thing to do is board up the windows, and he’s outside nailing the covers down when there’s still plenty of morning blue painted over everything in sight. Above him, the clouds still seem a ways off, but he knows they’ll be here by the evening, can tell by the way the wind already threatens to knock him over.

“Someone’s up early,” a voice calls from behind him, and he turns to see Junhui meandering up, smile stretching his cheeks. In one hand, he holds a bucket, and in the other a fishing rod, just like any other day. He tilts his chin up at the sky. “Think it’ll hit tonight?”

“I know it’ll hit tonight.” Wonwoo twirls his hammer absently through the air, thick sweat gathering on his knuckles. “You still planning to go out on the water?”

“Can’t afford not to,” Junhui says. When Wonwoo raises his eyebrows, Junhui’s smile glows. “Jihoon and I have a bet going.”

“That so?”

“Whoever catches the most fish wins,” he says, “and I know he won’t take the day off, so I can’t, either.”

“What’s riding on it?”

“If he wins, I have to stop fishing near his spot.”

Wonwoo whistles. Very like Jihoon, to want that kind of prize. “He’s finally onto you, huh?” Junhui hums, frowns a little bit.

“I’d say he’s more like the opposite of onto me,” he sighs. “Thinks I’m trying to sabotage his catch.”

“Of course he would.” They look at each other for a single wordless moment before a smile returns to Junhui’s eyes. The sound of the clouds moving toward them seems louder than ever in the warm silence. Wonwoo squints. “So what’s the deal if you win?”

Junhui’s grin waxes broader. “He has to have dinner with me.”

Wonwoo rolls his eyes. “I should’ve known,” he says. Very like Junhui, indeed, to be so straightforward. “You have no sense of subtlety.”

“Why should I be subtle?” Junhui huffs. “Even if I asked him to marry me, he’d still say I’m just trying to get on his nerves.”

“I don’t necessarily think he’s wrong.” When Wonwoo doesn’t retract it, Junhui’s grin thins almost to nothing.

“Maybe,” he allows. “But he said he would never have dinner with me, so I have to win this bet, see?” Something flashes in his eyes, a distant light not from the sun. “Ah, and on that note, I have a suspicion I won’t be able to join in on the fun later today.” Wonwoo groans.

“Why is it you always find a way to skip out on me?” he cries, smacking a hand against the wall.

“Let’s just say I’ve got a feeling I’ll need to take care of some other business.”

“What kind of other business could you possibly have during a storm?” Wonwoo spits, leveling his gaze. Junhui just grins back like scum. “I told Soonyoung you were coming, you know. He’ll only come if he knows you’ll be there.”

“Maybe he would come if you took a page from my book.”

“Which page might that be?” Wonwoo asks, tired.

“Page one,” Junhui says. “Lose the subtlety.” A seagull cries somewhere far off, and Junhui turns toward the noise. His eyes flicker like he sees something, and then he’s off walking again, one arm lifted in halfhearted farewell. “See you, then. Good luck.”

“With what?” Wonwoo calls after him. Even though Junhui is too far now, he can hear his laugh.

“With Soonyoung,” he shouts back. Then he ambles around a corner and disappears. Blowing out a breath full of steam, Wonwoo returns to his work.

By the time he’s sealed every window, the sun is nearing its peak, but the looming presence of slate clouds dampens the glare, sets the town swimming with a humid unease. They’re near enough now to spot without meaning to, those clouds, racing ever closer with the steady tick of time, and Wonwoo feels it aching behind his forehead while he hauls his tools back to the storage closet inside and begins the day’s cleaning. When the bar gets as full as it’s bound to later this evening, there’s no avoiding a mess. Wonwoo’s philosophy is that he ought to start with the cleanest bar possible to make the cleanup later seem more manageable. He begins with the tables, wiping each one down carefully, sweeping up every last missed crumb beneath them. Until the patrons come pouring in later, he’s only got this to do.

Sometime soon, Soonyoung will have to come by with his deliveries. Wonwoo’s ordered a lot this time around, enough supplies to make up for the inventory hit he’ll take from the storm, and as he polishes the seats by the bar, he wonders if Soonyoung won’t have too much trouble trying to carry it. Despite how careless he’s prone to acting, he can be so earnest about it. Even if his back breaks trying, he’ll get every last parcel to Wonwoo’s door on time. His heart is too soft not to. Wonwoo notices that he’s been on the same stool for so long that the additional polishing is almost making it look worse and curses. Such are the side-effects.

He understands why Soonyoung usually braces himself at home for rough storms like the one they’re about to have. Truthfully, if he didn’t own the bar, he might do the same. None of those shanties they bellow mean anything to him, and though the town’s population is low, the sheer mass of bodies inside is suffocating. There’s also something a little morbid, he thinks, about shouting with your mates to forget there’s a storm outside, to forget how scared you are of dying. Something a little childish about pretending everything is fine, hoping that just pretending will make it so. Still, he has to be there, so he wants Soonyoung to be there.

Patiently, he keeps up his work, but Soonyoung doesn’t show. He wants so badly not to think about when he’ll show up that he ends up thinking about nothing else, starts to get worried when there’s no noise at the door. Did something happen? He’s been rushing, so if he’s sprained his ankle or something… Wonwoo stops himself. He might be waiting on purpose, just so Wonwoo doesn’t feel so special, so he can prove he’s not as soft as he seems. Probably. That’s probably it. But there are so many hills in town, so many steps, and Soonyoung is prone to clumsiness. Wonwoo tosses his rag aside and sweeps the floors in silence.

No sound. Maybe he’s been talking too much. Even if Junhui says he’s too subtle, Wonwoo doesn’t buy it; it’s just that Junhui himself has no remote idea of what subtlety entails. Wonwoo has struck the perfect balance between subtle and direct, quiet when he needs to be and loud when he doesn’t. He’s nicer to Soonyoung than Jihoon is, anyway, and he uses a different voice than when he’s talking to either Junhui or Jihoon. It’s obvious enough if Soonyoung looks with his eyes open. The problem, Wonwoo guesses, is that he never opens them. Or he’s too busy to open them.

A hushed thud comes from the door, and Wonwoo’s nerves are so tensed it takes him five seconds to hear it and ten to go investigate. Of course, he already could have figured it would be Soonyoung without bothering to check, but what catches him off-guard is the sky’s sudden darkness. Has the day really gone by so quickly? The swirling mass of gray overhead, now much closer than before, embroils him in so much shock he forgets to look at Soonyoung. Soonyoung coughs.

“A little help?” he manages, gruff. When Wonwoo looks at him, his chest seizes with fresh stress.

He knew he ordered a lot, but he didn’t think it was this much. As he lifts one of the larger boxes and nearly throws his back out (“Lift with your knees, you idiot,” Soonyoung chides, weary), he reasons that there must be deliveries for other people among this batch, but the pit of his stomach won’t accept it. If they’re for other people, there’s no reason Soonyoung would have them hauled into the bar. And it’s so dark out already, so late. Just how late could he be planning to do deliveries? The sound of a box slamming onto the floor just behind the bar stirs his attention, and he looks to see Soonyoung heaving and pressing his face onto the cold finish of the bar top, eyes closed. Something about it makes him feel dizzy.

“Why so late today, mailman?” he teases, lips tugging into a careful smirk. Soonyoung opens his eyes for three seconds to send him a sideways glare, then huffs and shuts them again.

“I nearly dislocate my spine bringing all this crap for you,” he groans, “and this is the thanks I get?” After a few more seconds of quiet resting, he pushes himself upright and fixes his mouth in a very pointed frown. “That’s it. I’m leaving.”

“What, more deliveries?”

“Of course not,” Soonyoung says, eyes rolling. “Doesn’t all of this look like it’s for you?” He gestures toward the window, but the board nailed down outside defeats the point he’s about to make, and he sighs again. “Besides, it’s dark. I’m not trying to die.”

“Then why are you leaving?”

“Because you’re an ingrate,” he huffs. “After all I’ve done for you.”

Wonwoo narrows his eyes, smiles a little more. “All you’ve done? Like what, deliver to me last on purpose?”

Soonyoung stares at him for a long minute before bursting into a small fit of incredulous chuckles. “You’re too smart to be this stupid,” he says.

“Excuse me?”

“It’s called _strategy_ , Wonwoo.” He sets his hands up sideways on the countertop, palms facing each other from a few inches apart, taps them three times for good measure. “I saved you for last _on purpose_ so I could just stay.”

“Stay?”

“Are you kidding me?” Soonyoung searches every inch of Wonwoo’s face, but he can’t find the punch line. “For the… you know.” He waves one hand around. “The… storm party.”

“Oh.”

“But now that you’ve greatly insulted me, I’m leaving.”

“Aw, come on,” Wonwoo drawls, stepping close enough to wrap a hand around Soonyoung’s wrist. Never before has he been so close to getting Soonyoung to stick around, and if he’s the one who bungles the operation this time, he’ll never hear the end of it. From his own conscience or from Junhui. Soonyoung tries to shake the hand off, but only with the amount of strength he would use to wave off a fruit fly. Wonwoo’s grip doesn’t so much as budge.

“I was looking forward to sticking around this time, too,” he says, “but now that you’ve treated me so horribly, I’m definitely going home.” He wiggles his fingers around, as close to Wonwoo’s face as he can get them. “Release me, savage.”

“Sorry for insulting you. I’m very grateful you brought my packages.”

“Too late.”

“No, it’s not.”

Soonyoung continues to look at him from beneath short lashes, small grin materializing at his lips. “You think you can use your deep voice to charm me into staying, eh?” Wonwoo’s eyebrows shoot up. He didn’t think about that.

“Maybe,” he says, low, smiling. Soonyoung sighs.

“And Jihoon says I act like a kid.”

“He’s right.”

“If you think insulting me more is somehow going to get me to stay, you’re beyond wrong.”

“At least help me put all this stuff away,” Wonwoo says, loosening his hold on Soonyoung’s arm. His wrist remains trapped. “It’s a lot, you know.”

“I’m not the one who told you to order this much,” Soonyoung scoffs, but he stands anyway and lowers to open the nearest box and sort its contents. Wonwoo squats beside him and opens the adjacent box to begin his own organizational journey. For a long time, there is no speaking.

Wonwoo hopes the silence means complacency. He hopes Soonyoung has decided to stay after all, and he wonders how excited he should really be about it. So he’s here, but what else? Wonwoo can’t exactly make a move in the middle of a bar packed full of greasy fishermen, when he’s wearing the bones in his hands away trying to get their drinks out fast enough. He breathes out slowly. Not that he would anyway. He isn’t Junhui.

When he pulls out his next item, a stout jar of polish, it slips from his fingers and sets to spinning on the floor. He reaches for it distractedly, muttering a small curse too low to be heard, but when his hand finds its cargo, he doesn’t touch the jar. Looking down in surprise, he sees that Soonyoung beat him to the punch, and he only managed to get a grip on the hand that had already grabbed what he was looking for. No wonder it’s so warm. His head is swirling somewhere high in those nasty gray clouds.

“Huh,” he says, quiet. Soonyoung looks at him.

“I got it,” he says.

“So it seems.”

“So you can let go.”

Wonwoo hums, looking at their hands together. Soonyoung’s skin is lava beneath his palm. “I guess I could do that.”

“So do it already.”

The longer they sit like this, the more pink floods Soonyoung’s features. It starts from the tips of his ears, migrates slowly until it’s dyed his whole face. By the time it’s begun seeping into his neck, those ears are a full maroon, ready to sizzle off any moment. There’s probably a little color on Wonwoo’s face, too, now that he thinks about how warm he’s feeling. But his hand doesn’t move.

“What are you doing?” Soonyoung says, curt. When he puffs his cheeks in frustration like that, he looks like a little kid.

“Nothing.”

“And why?” He shakes the jar around. “Let me go. Do you want to get this stuff put away or not?”

Wonwoo sighs and releases his grip. “Guess so.” All the crooks in his palm tingle from the sudden lukewarm cool of the room forced upon them. Soonyoung sets the jar down between them with a short clack and watches Wonwoo until he picks it up.

They continue sorting without much talking, and Wonwoo uses the quiet to think. So Soonyoung is here. Great. He’s been asking for this opportunity, but now he doesn’t know what to do with it. If he were Junhui, he’d do something for sure, but he isn’t Junhui. Maybe he doesn’t need to do anything—yet somehow just talking like normal seems like a waste. And Soonyoung doesn’t seem like he’s getting the message Wonwoo is trying to send him. If only he weren’t so busy.

Taking a hint from Junhui is the sure sign of the end, just as sure as Jihoon agreeing to have dinner with him. He doesn’t want to. The more he thinks about it, though, he might. Nothing crazy. Nothing like making a wager that ends with dinner if Wonwoo wins. But maybe something.

“Where should I put these?” Soonyoung asks, hoisting a few boxes of fresh napkins in his hands.

“The storage closet behind the bar,” Wonwoo tells him. “I keep them on the top shelf.”

“Alright.”

Wonwoo watches him walk off, head still burning in conflict. Not two seconds has Soonyoung been in the storage closet when a loud noise comes from the entrance, and Wonwoo turns around to see seven or eight sweaty fishermen trudging through his doorway. Beyond them, he can see the sky outside has sunk even deeper into darkness, and a cold scent tickles his nose. The sound of the first raindrops hitting his covered windows echoes through the place as he watches his guests fill one table with a placid smile. So now is where it begins.

“Everything ready to go?” one of the men yells, gruff and grinning, elbows propped up on the table. Behind him, another group shuffles in, rain at their backs coming with just a little more swiftness. “I could go for a drink about now.”

“Nearly,” Wonwoo tells him, easy. “Just a few more things to put away. Soonyoung brought my shipment late today, see.”

“What a bum!” he calls, jovial, and the rest of his table roars with laughter. Wonwoo lifts his few remaining deliveries and stocks them on the underside of the bar. Head ducked to watch where he’s placing everything, he can hear gradually more footsteps and gradually quicker raindrops.

“Go easy on him,” he calls. “He’s busy.”

“Just ‘cause you have a soft spot for him doesn’t mean I have to.”

His friends at the table erupt in laughter again, and Wonwoo can’t help but laugh along. So even they’re clued in, these guys who have nothing to do with anything. Everyone seems to be except for Soonyoung. Maybe that means he is too subtle. Wonwoo rises from his task and leans his elbows on the bar, peers out over his steadily growing crowd of patrons, listens to the first clap of thunder outside and the subsequent howling it draws. Now’s about time to start drinking. Yet Soonyoung isn’t here.

“Where’s the beer?” one man calls as he steps in the door, shaking his hair like a wet dog. His friends raise their fists in agreement, match with indistinct shouting that covers up the next roar of thunder.

“You’ll have it in just a minute,” Wonwoo tells him, flicking his eyes back at the unmoving door of the storage closet. “I’ve gotta go check on something.”

Amid raucous bellows, he slinks back to the closet in question and opens the door. It shocks him to find the light off, and when he wades in to turn it on, he bumps into a warm mass blocking the space in the middle of the room and hears a strangled cry in response, followed by the loud clamor of something falling. The mass stumbles back into him, arms reaching backward to steady themselves by clinging to the hem of Wonwoo’s shirt. Wonwoo breathes in slowly. This must be Soonyoung’s back pressed against his chest right now, must be Soonyoung’s fingertips tangling in the edge of his clothes. Somehow, he’s scared to move.

“You scared me,” Soonyoung squeaks, body shaking with each breath he takes. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Do I have to announce myself in my own place of business?” Wonwoo asks. Soonyoung doesn’t say anything. “What are you doing in here?”

“Trying to put the napkins on the top shelf.” That explains what fell. Wonwoo can only hope the box is intact.

“With the lights off?”

“I think I bumped the switch,” Soonyoung says, “and I couldn’t find it again.”

“You could have come and gotten me,” Wonwoo says. “How long were you planning on standing in here trying to put something on a shelf you can’t even see?” And probably can’t even reach, now that Wonwoo considers it. Soonyoung sighs.

“You just sounded like you were getting busy out there,” he says, meek. “I didn’t want to bug you.” Wonwoo listens to the pulse in his own chest for a moment, right until it’s cut off by another rumble of thunder outside. It’s getting louder.

“So you could hear,” he muses. He doesn’t need to see Soonyoung’s head to know he’s nodding.

So he could hear. Wonwoo sifts through that in his head. If he can hear, then he heard one of the fishermen say he’s got a soft spot for Soonyoung, and if he heard, that means he has to know. This puts Wonwoo in some different position, to be sure, but he’s not sure how different, not sure what he can do about it. He waits a while without speaking.

“So,” Soonyoung begins after the next burst of thunder, “you have a soft spot for me, huh?” As if it isn’t obvious. Wonwoo sighs.

“I’ve gotta go get drinks out for people,” he says. When he turns to go, he feels Soonyoung’s weight shift almost until he topples, wraps a hand around one of his wrists to hold him upright.

“Hey, that’s—you don’t get to change the subject,” Soonyoung says, not bothering to fight Wonwoo’s dragging him outside. He squints when there’s light on his eyes again, then gapes at the sight of the crowd, now almost pushing out the front door. “God, that’s a lot of people,” he whispers.

“Would you help me get them some drinks?” Wonwoo asks. “If it’s fine with you.”

“I guess.” Soonyoung peers at each face carefully while he readies a line of glasses on the bar for Wonwoo to fill, nose scrunched in focus. “I don’t see Junhui.”

“He’s not coming.”

“You told me he would be here,” Soonyoung says, frowning and swatting at Wonwoo’s arm.

“Well, it’s not my fault. When I said it, it was true.” He arranges the first round atop a large tray and balances it on one palm to carry out to his guests. While he does, he sees Junhui’s face in his mind, and an idea flickers into his mind. A very unsubtle idea. “Hey, that reminds me of something.”

“What’s that?”

“Have dinner with me sometime.”

When he looks back, Soonyoung is standing with his jaw slack, face slowly warming from peach to cherry. Wonwoo walks off when he starts to feel a similar color seep into his own face, and as he places the glasses in front of a lively horde of guests, he listens to the increasing intensity of the rain outside. They’re in for a long storm this time for sure.

 

Junhui watches closely from his own boat, squinting through the gradual thickening of the rain. Jihoon is but a tiny dot on the distant horizon, but Junhui’s sure it’s him. Nobody else is foolish enough to be out here fishing in a storm like this. Aside from himself, of course. But he’s not here to catch anything; he’s here because he knew Jihoon would be, and somebody has to make sure he doesn’t get turned over in the storm when it’s so dark out, make sure he doesn’t get washed away. Junhui is happy to take the job, though he wishes Jihoon would just call it quits already.

He wonders how long they’ll be out here. Not that Jihoon realizes he has a companion. Maybe it’s a bit strange to be out here keeping watch over him like some kind of guardian, but Junhui can’t help the nasty nerves he feels every time he considers the probability of Jihoon getting flipped off his boat in the storm, of something happening to him. It’s natural. When you come to like someone, you start caring a lot more about what happens to them. As it happens, he’s come to like Jihoon a lot.

If he asks himself when it began, even he isn’t sure. The way this town is, they’ve almost known each other since before they were born, but it’s a recent thing, this feeling that Jihoon is very important to him, that he’d like to pull him a little closer when the winter chill starts setting in. It might have been since the very first time he spotted him fishing in that spot on the other side of the island, a singular body in the midst of roiling waves. The loneliness of that figure was so intriguing, the silent endurance of the single boat. Junhui couldn’t help but be curious. Yes, he guesses. That was probably it.

Ever since back before time began, before either of them was old enough to take a boat out on the waters alone to catch anything, Jihoon has been the kind of person he is now. Someone who pretends his own emotions are insignificant enough to put on the backburner when he’s far too smart to truly believe it. This is probably the reason other people’s feelings really get lost on him. When they’re being nice, it must have some sort of underhanded motive. It’s impossible to be subtle with someone who refuses to see in the first place, so Junhui doesn’t bother.

The rain grows stronger with every minute that goes by, but Jihoon’s boat makes no move to make its way back to the dock. It’s growing darker alongside the steady rumbling of thunder as it creeps ever nearer, and Junhui is slowly losing sight of Jihoon’s silhouette in the distance. Just how much longer, he wonders. There’s no way he can be getting too many catches in conditions like this anyway. Where Junhui was fishing, they stopped biting a few hours before the darkest clouds arrived, and he stopped then. The way Jihoon sits out there by his lonesome now, it seems like he just has something to prove.

Though he’s already close to them, Junhui recedes to the docks after a while to light a few lanterns and put them in the windows of the little storage shack nearby. A lot of the other men in the village like to leave their equipment here normally, but right now, it’s completely empty out of fear the winds will rip it from the ground and toss it out to sea. Standing inside, Junhui feels the ground of that fear in the way the walls groan around him, threaten to collapse. Still, he lights the lanterns, so Jihoon will have something to guide himself home.

Once he’s come inside, he doesn’t feel like going back out. His clothes are so soaked through with rain they feel like part of him, and his skin buzzes at the feeling of freedom from the unrelenting press of the downpour outside. The problems are that this building isn’t sturdy enough to make him feel safe and that he still has a nasty feeling Jihoon will disappear if nobody makes sure he doesn’t. Not even the vague dry warmth from the flickering flames in each lantern is enough to distract him from it. Once he’s gotten each one secured on its sill, he heads back outside.

Dark descended even more quickly than expected while he was in, and the thickness of the rain now makes it hard to see past a few feet off the edge of the dock. His chest tightens at the sight of the empty sea, dark and swirling and endless. The sound of falling rain pelting the dock is too loud now to make out anything but the occasional surge of thunder, but Junhui strains his ears anyway. It’s completely pointless to hope he’ll hear Jihoon call something out, but he clings to the hope regardless. Of course he can’t hear a thing. That doesn’t stop his blood pressure from spiking.

After a few moments of weighing alternatives, he decides to risk going back out on the water to check. The waves are violent from the moment his hull meets the surface, threatening to knock him sideways, water filling the interior inch by inch as he pushes forward. Every few yards, he looks back to make sure the lanterns in the windows are still visible, then resumes his forward task. After another few moments, a distant lightning strike lights up everything around him. Rumble of thunder piercing his ears, he only just makes out the shape of something up ahead through the thick veil of rain. It looks like a boat, he thinks. It looks like it’s flipping.

“Jihoon!” he calls. “Are you there?” No answer comes, but he keeps waiting for one, keeps pushing himself forward. Far behind him, the lanterns cling to their flames in desperation. “Jihoon!” he calls again. “Jihoon!” Again. Again and again. The storm is so loud he can never hope to hear a response, but he still tries for one.

His throat is starting to go raw when he feels a surge of weight on the rear of his boat that can’t be due to the water alone, and he turns around and squints through the dark, heart tight in the center of his neck. At the rear of his boat, Jihoon’s drenched frame heaves itself aboard, slumping deep to the bottom when he’s made it on fully. He coughs a few times before looking up at Junhui, and his lips may move to speak, but the rain is too loud to tell what he might have said. Against the force of waves below, Junhui brings them back to the dock.

Inside the little shack, the sound outside is still too loud, but it’s far too quiet. Jihoon doesn’t say anything even after they’ve shut themselves inside, just sits still facing the wall, legs folded beneath himself. Water drips slowly from his clothes to the floor, gathering in an uncomfortable puddle that spreads beyond his ankles, and Junhui watches him with equal silence, unsure what the right thing is to say at a time like now. Jihoon could have drowned, he guesses. It might be shaking him up to consider that. It’s certainly shaking Junhui up.

After a while, Jihoon straightens his back, stretches his arms out, and for a moment, seems like he’ll do something else. Talk, maybe. He doesn’t. Junhui keeps eyeing his back, but he doesn’t make any other move to say or do anything. Only the wall in front of him retains his interest. The silence is driving Junhui out of his mind with the way it makes the rainfall outside start to sound like gossiping whispers, and he coughs to break it.

“Are you okay?” he asks, gentle, and Jihoon turns around to face him.

He looks more or less okay, but on the whole, he looks angry. That’s not so unusual—he usually looks grumpy about something or other unless the weather is nice and the breezes are frequent and the fish are biting—but the look on his face right now is a few heavy shades beyond the normal grouch. Junhui wishes he could attribute it to the way water drips off the corners of his eyebrows, but he knows better than to try. The air is thick with heat, stuffy with the sound of rain.

“Why are you here?” Jihoon asks him, markedly less than friendly. Another brief flash of lightning throws purplish white over them from outside, puts the few dingy lanterns to shame. Not far behind, a roar of thunder rumbles through.

“Sorry?”

“Why are you here?” he repeats. “Why were you out there with your boat?” There’s something in the edge to his voice that separates it from hostility, but Junhui struggles to place a finger on what. Is it fragility? Jihoon’s eyes seem to shake when he picks his body up and reverses to face Junhui head-on, stirring his shallow pond of drippings in the process.

“Uh,” Junhui says. Very smart. He isn’t afraid to admit the true answer since Jihoon will refuse it anyway, but still his jaw won’t work out the words. It might be because he didn’t really prepare himself to deliver it. Ideally, he was hoping he wouldn’t have to. That Jihoon was just a little too bold and he worried for nothing. That was all he thought he would have to deal with. Jihoon sighs, and his eyes soften, though the rest of his face remains set in hard lines.

“Sorry,” he says. “Thank you for saving me. Really.” His lips draw tight around each word in a way Junhui knows means he really means them. “I just want to know why you could.” Around them, the walls creak against the wind. This sound is so much lonelier than the boisterous singing of a crowd. “Why are you here instead of at the bar?”

“I was going to go,” Junhui tells him, “but I just had a feeling.”

Jihoon’s gaze is relentless, unmoving, piercing. So very like him. “A feeling?”

“That you would still be trying to fish.” Junhui waits a beat while the rain picks up its pressure against the roof. “Because of our bet.”

“I see.” His eyes narrow now, and Junhui knows this means he doesn’t see. What he thinks he’s seeing is just what he wants to see. It’s always like this. “So it’s about the bet.” His eyes widen. “So you came to sabotage me?”

“Why is that the first thing you think of?” Junhui groans. “Why would I do that? And how, even? Think with your head for once.”

“Excuse me?” Jihoon spits. “I always think with my head.”

“Is that why you were fishing in a storm? Your head told you that was a good idea?”

“I don’t want to hear it from someone who was out in that same storm lying in wait to ambush me.”

“Ambush you how, exactly?” Junhui cries. “Listen to yourself. I’m telling you I wasn’t trying to sabotage you!”

“What were you doing then?” Jihoon’s arm flies in an angry arc, splatters a curve of water across the wall he’d been gazing at so intensely. “Not fishing. I didn’t see a bucket.”

“I was making sure nothing happened to you,” Junhui tells him, serious, willing his eyes not to look away. “Because I knew you would be out there trying to win the stupid bet.” Because that’s how you are, he almost says, and because that’s what I like about you. He doesn’t say it because Jihoon still looks pissed off.

“Right.”

“That _is_ right.”

The air floods with silence again, grave on their shoulders, pressing down even the flames dancing in each of the lanterns until they’ve grown nearly too dim to light both ends of the shed. Junhui collects them from their sills and lines them up on the ground to brighten the space between the corners, but the added heat from the small fires is too much. Suddenly, he’s burning alive in his skin, and Jihoon is watching him as he does.

He isn’t sure whether to continue looking at Jihoon or stare at the wall while the silence eats at him, but Jihoon keeps looking at him, so he looks back. Little by little, he feels the skin of his arms start to prickle where it dries, the warm smell of water dissipating into the air lacing his nose, and he wishes he could take his clothes off and wring them out, wishes he could leave this musty shed and make the trek back home. The outside volume tells him there’s no chance he’ll make it back alright. They’re stuck in here now until either the storm subsides or swallows them whole, nothing but a few flickering lights to keep them company. Junhui is drowning in the air.

“Well,” Jihoon begins after a while, huffing and turning to glare at the wall, “I lost my whole catch anyway.”

“You should’ve quit earlier.”

“Too late now, right? I’m sure you’re happy.” Another arm throw. More water on the wall. This time, it hardly misses the row of lanterns between them. “It’s basically your win now.”

“We can redo it another week,” Junhui says. “It doesn’t have to be this one.”

“But we said this week, so it’s this week.”

“Why are you being so hardheaded?” A drop of water drips to the tip of Junhui’s nose from his hair, and it dyes his vision red. “We can change it if you really want me to lose so bad! Why do you even want to win, anyway? What did I do to you?”

“All you ever do is come to bother me and ruin my catch,” Jihoon scoffs. “Of course I want you stop.”

“But I’m not _trying_ to bother you!” Somehow, looking at Jihoon again makes his anger subside. “Or ruin your catch.” Just moments ago, he’d been ready to punch a hole through the roof, but now all he feels is a defeated sort of sadness. The kind that comes when you can’t make yourself be understood.

“Yeah, right.”

“It won’t kill you to believe me.”

“Why come, then?” Jihoon asks. His fists rest clenched on his knees, dampness on his knuckles slowly receding to nothing. “Why come all the way to the far side of the island and fish right next to me?”

“I already told you,” Junhui says. “I like your company.”

“That’s a lie,” Jihoon says without hesitating, flat and sure.

“It’s not.”

“It is.”

“Why would it be?” Junhui sighs, head lolling to the side. Slowly, the sleeves of his shirt are starting to feel a little drier. “Can’t I just like to be around you?”

“Nobody else does, so why should you?”

“That’s not…” It’s so frustrating to love someone who’s been convincing himself he can’t be loved. A strange thing, considering the confidence Jihoon has in himself everywhere else. “Plenty of people like to be around you, you know.” They stare at each other a while, and the sound of rain is so distant now it’s almost inaudible. “Especially me.”

“Why should they?”

“Does it matter why? They just do.” Junhui sinks to his back and stares at the reedy ceiling in frustration, soaked fabric of his shirt creasing uncomfortably against his spine. “And even if they didn’t, I still do.” He exhales again, thick and lethargic. “It’s because you’re like this Wonwoo can’t understand why I’m in love with you.”

A soft roar of thunder rolls through, shakes the walls a little bit, and Jihoon doesn’t say anything. The small flames in the lanterns continue to dance through the silence, shifting in regular patterns that stain the lowest parts of the walls with feeble gold shadows and spread a river of yellow light between the two men on either side of them. After the silence hangs in the air a moment, Junhui’s ears digest his own words, and he sits upright again wide-eyed to find Jihoon looking at him just the same way.

“Sorry,” Junhui says carefully, “what did I just say?”

“You said…” Jihoon’s voice drifts off into the nothingness of the rain, eyebrows lowered as he stares from those few short feet away. His cheeks are vaguely pink, and Junhui can tell already what he accidentally said. Not that it matters, anyway. Slowly, Jihoon’s frown deepens, and Junhui knows exactly what he’s thinking and how far it is off the mark. “What are you trying to do here?” Jihoon asks at last.

“What do you mean by that?”

“I’m asking what you think you’re gonna get out of me,” Jihoon spits, arms crossing over his chest, eyes glowing. “I won’t fall for it. There’s no way you think I will.”

“There’s nothing to fall for, Jihoon.”

“Act your age for once.” He turns his glare to the lanterns now, staring with enough heat they start to burn brighter. “You think this is funny or something? Are you a kid?”

“Nothing is funny,” Junhui says, then breathes out. This time when he speaks, he does it with his chest. “This, too. This is another reason Wonwoo doesn’t get it.”

“Doesn’t get what? And don’t say—”

“Why I’m in love with you,” Junhui interrupts. “Are you listening to me? I’m in love with you.”

“Cut it out already!” Jihoon shouts, loud enough to make the thunder outside quiver. He smacks one palm hard against the floor, shoulders stiff, then reels his hand back in slowly and balls it in a fist. “Whatever rise you’re trying to get out of me, I won’t let you have it.”

“No.” Junhui huffs, pushes his chest out, find his own hands have crushed themselves into fists as well. “I’ll cut it out when you actually start listening to me.”

“I’ll listen to you when you start making sense.”

“I’m already making sense. You just don’t want to—”

A fist comes swinging at Junhui in the middle of his sentence, and he only barely manages to catch it before impact on the right side of his jaw. Jihoon’s hand shakes with anger under his fingers, and as Junhui watches it lose vigor, he becomes distantly aware of another fist coming at him from the other side. Once again, he catches it by grace alone, and then both arms are locked in a struggle against Jihoon’s, their faces edging closer together despite Junhui’s will to keep them apart.

“Damn it,” Jihoon wheezes, trying and failing to rend his wrist from Junhui’s grip. Junhui takes a few deep breaths to cool down the shuddering in his chest, blinks slowly.

“Why are you trying to hit me?” he asks, low. In his hand, Jihoon’s fist tenses and untenses, again and again, still eager to be released but no longer working hard for it.

“Because you won’t quit,” Jihoon mutters back. Strange how the rain doesn’t touch his voice at all. “I told you, I won’t fall for it. Stop acting like a child.”

“You’re the one who’s acting like a child,” Junhui says, and Jihoon’s hands momentarily resume their valiant struggle for freedom. Then they stare at each other for a long time. Even though Junhui is sure he knows what Jihoon is thinking, he doesn’t know how to make him quit thinking it. That might be the biggest challenge on his plate. To be misunderstood without any hope of reconciling it. Another roll of thunder rings on the air, and he exhales slowly. As long as they’re stuck in here together, he’s got nothing but time to try.

“What?” Jihoon says after a while, cheeks dark, eyes narrowed, and Junhui notices he was staring a little too hard. His face pinks.

“Why do you want me to be lying so bad?” he asks, quiet. The corners of Jihoon’s mouth edge further down.

“Who says I _want_ you to be lying?” he says. “I just know that you are.”

“But I’m telling the truth. And you should know me well enough to know that.”

For a while, Jihoon says nothing. “What are you trying to say?” he asks at last, after too long has passed, after the storm outside has eaten them and spit them back out so many times they’re no longer the same two people. Junhui is starting to forget what the world sounds like without rain as its backdrop.

“You have to know I’m telling the truth,” Junhui says, “so why won’t you just believe it already?”

“Because it doesn’t make sense, that’s why.” Jihoon’s hands fall limp where they’ve been trapped, furrow in his brow melting from anger to plain frustration, eyes unmoving from Junhui’s face. “Why would you be in love with me, anyway? And why would you just say it?”

“Does it matter why? I just am.”

“Stop it.”

“I like your company. I like fishing near you even if we don’t say anything. It’s comfortable to be there like that. And I just like it. And I wish we could talk, too, except I know you don’t want to.” What are you scared of, Junhui thinks of asking, but he doesn’t. He knows Jihoon isn’t scared of anything. There’s just something in him that hates so much to be wrong.

“Why are you doing this?” Jihoon asks.

Thee are so many ways to answer Junhui can’t choose which one to say. He’s saying it because it’s true, because he’s tired of not saying it, because he’s done for good with subtlety in all its nuanced forms, because one can only go so long being ignored before the urge to scream wells up. This is the only way Junhui can scream that Jihoon will hear it—here, in this shack, surrounded by the rain, right now. Maybe it’s laughable that he has to be so excruciatingly honest. A sigh ghosts through his lips.

“Because I want you to have dinner with me,” he says, weary, loosening his hold on Jihoon’s hands enough for him to finally pull them away. At first, he primes himself to swing again, but after a few moments of hesitating with one arm drawn back and tensed behind him, he relaxes again.

“Always with that,” he says. “First the bet, and now again.” The sharpness of his frown fades until he’s left looking nothing but confused. “What’s the big deal with dinner?”

“I just want to have you over. I’ll make something for you, something nice.” A hopelessly hopeful grin buds at his lips. “I’m a good cook, you know.”

Jihoon raises his eyebrows, and his lips begin to mimic Junhui’s in their own bemused smile, faintly cattish in the way they curl. “You’re really trying to sell yourself.”

“I really want you to have dinner with me.”

Right now, they’re closer than they have been in a while, nearly huddled within the confines of their shaky protection from the rage of nature outside. Somehow, they’ve inched further into the center of the shack, until they sit beside the short row of lanterns, lights twisting their shadows on the far wall and its firmly shut door that still rattles in the wind. Jihoon smiles just a bit more, and Junhui notices that his hair is finally dry.

“If you win our little contest,” he says, “I’ll have dinner with you.”

“Of course you will,” Junhui scoffs. “Those are the rules.” Jihoon’s smile subsides.

“Alright, what do you want from me, then?”

Junhui’s grin broadens. “I want you to have dinner with me even if I don’t win.”

Jihoon rolls his eyes. “You’re ridiculous.”

“I just don’t think it’s fair I have to win something to make you dinner.”

“Too bad.”

With a heavy breath out, Junhui stretches his arms back and leans onto them, eyes on Jihoon under heavy lids. “It’ll just be the two of us stuck in here until this storm dies down,” he says, straining his ears to make out the sound of the downpour. How far off it’s begun to seem. “I think I can wear you down.”

Jihoon looks at him for a long moment, then sighs. His eyes say something like he was right all along, like he knew Junhui was always out just to bother him. Maybe he’s just a little bit right. “You’re an awful man,” he says.

“I just like you, is all.”

Jihoon sighs again, and all the winds of the sea go with him.

“Awful.”

Outside, the storm continues to rage, tossing the ocean’s waves in a frenzy even when nobody watches. Ignorant to the singing of the villagers crammed close in the walls of the pub, more lightning flashes. Ignorant to the slow way Jihoon warms up to saying yes, more thunder rolls. Long after the people have stopped noticing the horrid grate of rainfall and the crushing thickness of humidity in the air, angry winds thrash the island from every side, turn over all they can. When morning arrives in its pale blue glory, just as all storms before it, there is a final twisting wave, a final shattering gust. One last strip of gray cloud dissolves into nothing over the village. Then, with little fanfare, just like each storm before invariably has and each after inevitably will, it passes.

**Author's Note:**

> YAAAAAAAAAAAY 96Z i have had this au idea for a long while and finally used 96z fest as an excuse to write it lmfao. it's fucking late so i won't say much here but i really enjoyed writing this and i hope you were able to enjoy reading it just as much!!!!!! thank you so so sososososoosos much for reading!!!!! as always, feedback is greatly appreciated! yay lawful good 96z!!!


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